Dead and Kind of Famous
The podcast where two friends (one who's a nobody and one who's kinda famous) dive into the life stories of dead folks who enjoyed a touch or two of fame in their time and now reside permanently in Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
Dead and Kind of Famous
Let's Do Things: Tomata Du Plenty Part 1
At the intersection of drag theater, punk rock innovation, and fearless artistic evolution stands David Xavier Harrigan - better known to those in-the-know as Tomato DePlenty.
From his early days with the revolutionary Cockettes (described by John Waters as "insane hippie drag queens" creating "complete sexual anarchy"), to founding Ze Whiz Kidz in Seattle, to pioneering synthesizer-based punk with The Screamers, Tomato consistently positioned himself at the cutting edge of artistic movements.
What makes Tomato's story so compelling isn't just his artistic versatility - it's his uncanny ability to be in exactly the right place at exactly the right time.
He embodied his personal philosophy: "Let's do things" and "Do plenty."
Listen in as we uncover the first chapter in the fascinating life of this punk pioneer, theatrical innovator, and boundary-breaking artist who helped shape multiple movements while remaining just outside the spotlight.
Links From This Episode:
Tomata's Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/18803/tomata-du_plenty
The Tupperware's at the TMT show recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyezrW9SNP0
The Screamers Target Studios Promo Video: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/18803/tomata-du_plenty
Gary Panter's famous rendering of Tomata: https://obeygiant.com/gary-panter-a-provocateur-print-available-now/
The Cockettes Documentary Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gPxQvN0f1c
Follow us on...
Substack- https://substack.com/@deadandkindafamous
Here, you can find our episodes, transcripts, relevant images and newsletters.
Instagram- @deadandkindoffamous
See us visit the graves of our subjects and pay our respects with lovingly selected offerings.
Apple Podcasts and Spotify- Please be a Bon Vivant and leave us a rating and review. It would mean the world!
Hello and welcome to Dead and Kind of Famous, where we dig into the life stories of dead folks who enjoyed a touch or two of fame in their time and now reside permanently in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. I'm Marissa Rivera and I know nothing, but I do know that after spending a couple weeks in New York, which is where I'm recording from right now, I don't think I could ever live here on a permanent basis. Too loud, a little bit at a time.
Speaker 1:Is it too loud? Is that what it is?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like it's so much. It's so much people, so much noise, so much I feel like my neuro spicy is just tingling all the time. And yeah, I tried to get home from Brooklyn on the train last night and it was like a fiasco. It took so long, there were so many, like it said a train was coming and a train never showed up.
Speaker 2:You know that kind of thing and it's just like an extra 45 minutes and then and then I ended up having to, like walk from Times Square back to my, and no one wants to walk from Times Square at one in the morning. Nope, nope. So I do. I do know that. That's what I know.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, I also remember when I my first school was in Staten Island and there were times that I got on the wrong train to get back to the ferry, when you know you have to get that train Cause it's like you'll miss the ferry and then you'll have to spend the night there. And um, and I did. I had to spend the night in the ferry terminal multiple times.
Speaker 2:So, no, it's not okay, that's not okay. Yep, it's not a life I want to live.
Speaker 1:Yep, it's rough. It's rough out there, um. So I'm Courtney Blomquist and I know way too much about what we're going to talk about today, anyway, but, um, I don't know, I don't know, like, how I'm functioning. I stayed up way too late last night, um, and I.
Speaker 2:I got an email at four 30 this morning.
Speaker 1:Well, your time, there is my time, One one 30 your time, but still two, 30. Right, we know you're right. One, 30. My time, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was. It was. It was a late night and then I like woke up and and snapped at Jesse and he's like why aren't you basically like what's wrong with you? And I'm like I'm sleep deprived. And he's like why won't you chill? And it's because we want to bring this podcast to you guys.
Speaker 2:So that's right.
Speaker 1:There is no chill, there is no chill, there's no chill, all right. So today's episode is diving into many areas of the arts, specifically, theater, music and visual art.
Speaker 2:How apropos for you.
Speaker 1:Being in new york city, I know it's a perfect episode for me it is, and it's all about just one man, and his name was david xavier harrigan. Have you ever heard of David Xavier Harrigan Marissa?
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, let's look at this right now I don't think I have. I don't think I have. Okay, I don't think you have either, at least as it stands right now. So this is the headstone. It is in a really strange room within Hollywood Forever. It's actually called the Chapel Colonnade. It's on the first floor, on the north wall, and this place I did like kind of the virtual walk around it. We haven't walked in there yet, or at least I haven't with you.
Speaker 2:No. So anyway it's like a little weird and like, yeah, creepy yeah.
Speaker 1:And tell us about it. Tell it, what do you see?
Speaker 2:Okay, so it's like a black box and on top it's a. What is it called? Where the gold, the, the, the plate, the name plates, the gold plate? I think it's supposed to be gold, but because of what's around? It. It's reflected red and at first I was like why is there a credit card?
Speaker 1:It does kind of look like that or what.
Speaker 2:It's not a headstone. What is this one called?
Speaker 1:I don't know what this is. It's like it looks like a shadow box. I'm going to switch. This is what it looks like as a whole. Oh's like it looks like a shadow box. I'm going to switch. This is what it looks like as a whole. Oh yeah, it's totally a shadow box. It's kind of this little box of ashes with photos around it and like little.
Speaker 2:Did he die in the 80s or early 90s? Because I really feel that's when shadow boxes really had their time.
Speaker 1:No, but of that era as as a life okay, okay, making sense yeah so there's okay.
Speaker 2:So there's a weird plate that looks red. There's some illustrations and stickers all around it yeah, it's like if iris was.
Speaker 1:Like, let me make your grave, yeah exactly it looks like.
Speaker 2:It looks like kids are like. Let me, let me color all b-balls I don't know what this is called I really don't know what this is called. Yeah, I'm not sure um I mean, is that a place for his ashes? I'm assuming?
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly so. It's like an urn, it's like a box-shaped urn, it's like a square urn.
Speaker 2:It's a boxed urn.
Speaker 1:Right, and then we can see it's hard to read but that his birth date is May 28th 1948. And his death was in 2000, august 31st. Okay, and then 52 years old.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly, If you can do the math which I couldn't sell, I brought up my calculator.
Speaker 1:I know I was impressed. Oh my gosh Okay.
Speaker 2:I don't do math in my head and I'm so sleepy I know All right.
Speaker 1:So now, tell us, tell us the, now that you've seen all of this, tell us the obituary of David Xavier Harrigan.
Speaker 2:Well, david Xavier Harrigan was born in Jackson.
Speaker 1:Mississippi. Of course he's Southern, of course he is Go ahead.
Speaker 2:I know it just came out of me, born in Jackson, mississippi, and he always thought that he would do what his pawpaw did before him and his peepaw did before him, which was work at the local Five and Dime and the grocery store in town. But he started falling in love with the TV Because every night the family would gather around the TV, because every night the family would gather around the TV and watch the shows together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'll just stop you. You're wrong about everything.
Speaker 2:I'll just stop you right now. I think he had a, I think he had a family, I think he had a family and that his family. He had some young, young, either grandkids or nieces and nephews who drew on his grave, and I think he was a visual artist and perhaps did some art design here in Hollywood. Okay, okay, maybe some set design, art designs in the art department.
Speaker 1:Well, so you're right about the fact that he did so, like he did do a combination of arts and his life, for sure. And I'm going to tell you right now, I kind of set you up to fail on this, because you actually do have an idea of who this is.
Speaker 2:You do, so you do, I do.
Speaker 1:You do. He is a returning character, basically from our last episode. What yeah? So the hero of today's story was born David Xavier Harrigan, but the name he used throughout his adult life was Tomata DePlenty, and I pronounced it wrong last night. Last time it's Tomata, not Tomata.
Speaker 2:Tomata DePlenty, the punk rocker.
Speaker 1:It's the punk rocker. Yes.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:I know.
Speaker 2:It looks pretty punk, it does.
Speaker 1:He was very, very, very punk through all his things and, yes, so man, he only made it to 52.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so bad, I know. So, if you'll recall, this was the very same tomato to plenty that befriended vampire in the 1980s and really looked out for her. He is the mench from the last episode, basically. So if vampire was a counterculture goddess, then Tomato was a counterculture king queen at times, making a notable mark in subversive theater, early punk rock though he has no studio recordings to show for it, and we will talk about that and folk art. He's so fascinating and talented talented, and I can't wait to tell you about him. Cool, yeah, all right. So tomato was a childhood nickname, so he didn't even come up with that part himself he had?
Speaker 2:yeah, because he had two. How do you come up with that nickname?
Speaker 1:well, I know it's kind of a leap even for the nickname, because his the it came to be. The only thing I've heard is that he had two sisters named Iris, like my daughter, and Daisy, and I guess his parents wanted another plant-related name for a boy, but Cypress wasn't an acceptable option to put on a birth certificate yet.
Speaker 2:So Tomato.
Speaker 1:Tomato. They were like well, well, you're gonna be tomato.
Speaker 1:Um, that's so funny yeah, so everybody called him tomato. So his family went in the goofy nickname direction, you know, instead of making his real name, which is probably smart. And the do plenty was his own addition, simply meaning do plenty, because it's spelled D? U space, p L E N T Y, but he meant like D O P L E N T Y, like I do plenty. And if there's one thing, and one thing only, to say about tomato, he did in fact do plenty in his life, as we will find out.
Speaker 2:Hell yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so, and also very, very on point, Marissa, he was born right in the area you are right now pretty much.
Speaker 2:New York, New York.
Speaker 1:Yes, tomato was born in Broad Channel, queens, on May 28th 1948 to an Irish Catholic family.
Speaker 2:All right, yeah.
Speaker 1:If you've never heard of Broad Channel, it is essentially the southernmost portion of Queens that is largely looked over and unheard of within the city of new york I was like I've never heard of it. Nobody has it lies between jfk airport and rockaway beach, like right in between those two things. Um, it's like it's like if queens kind of like dribbles out into this like little nothing, where there's like a highway running through and not much land, and like that's kind of what it is it's a funny little image.
Speaker 1:if you look at it on a map, it's definitely on the fringes of the city, just like DePlenty ended up being on the fringes of every one of his pursuits, while still being assuredly on the map when it comes to influence.
Speaker 2:The fringes of society.
Speaker 1:Yes, map when it comes to influence the fringes of society. Yes, so when he was 10 years old, his family moved to montebello, california, just about 15 miles outside of la, so he went one coast to the other as a child and with the hippie scene calling to him. As a teen, young tomato stood on the street, stuck his thumb in the air and hitchhiked his way to los angeles and then later, san francisco at 10 years old. No, no, no, once he was a teen oh, so it's okay, I'm skipping ahead.
Speaker 2:I missed that. Oh my god, no, no, I'm glad you clarified.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, there's, no, there's no evidence really that, like he had like a troubled family home or anything like that. I don't know about that. So I think he just was like itching. He's like I gotta get out.
Speaker 1:But when he was like 16, okay, so he hitchhiked his way he hitchhiked his way to los angeles, which was, like, not that far away, you know, probably the safer place to hitchhike, in a way, because he was closer to home, and then spent a few years there, which are probably I don't know what those years were, to be honest and then found his way to San Francisco a couple of years in.
Speaker 1:To find his people, yeah, to find his people. And he, like I said, he hasn't talked much about his early childhood family stuff or his childhood identity with queerness, but he was 100% a queer kid and it would stand to reason that, for him especially, he needed to search for a place where he belonged. Well, san, Francisco.
Speaker 2:Exactly, it's the queerest place around, it's true, yeah, and so it's no surprise we're a little cave in and we love you for it. Exactly, it is the gay Mecca of.
Speaker 1:America. Exactly, it is the gay Mecca of America, so he, of course, would find his people there, and this was the first in a series of times in his life that Tameda moved somewhere and landed squarely where he needed to be at a pivotal moment.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, yeah, so timing worked out in his favor a lot.
Speaker 1:Often yes, wow, yeah, so like timing worked out in his favor.
Speaker 2:A lot. Often yes, so what a very different experience. Oh, I know.
Speaker 1:Last girl? Oh for sure Well.
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:It's a, it's a it's. These are. These are interesting stories. There's their offbeat stories of making a mark. I'll say that.
Speaker 2:Where did you? Where? Where's your research from Where's your?
Speaker 1:Oh, good point. Yeah, my research is from. There's no book that I read, there's a couple articles. I have his final interview, which was done for NWR magazine. The last interview is by Jack Rabid. I want to say Yep, jack Rabid. And then the other one was called you Better Shut Up and Listen, by David Jones. And then there are multiple other sources and we will list them.
Speaker 2:So where were we? Upon arriving in San Francisco in 1968, he quickly befriended George Harris.
Speaker 1:Yes, so he befriended George Harris. Let's talk about George Harris for a second. Do you know the famous image of the hippie putting a flower into a gun at a protest you know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, great.
Speaker 1:So yeah.
Speaker 2:So photo.
Speaker 1:Well, he was in that photo, so that hippie was George Harris, when he was protesting the Vietnam War. No, it's a guy here. I'll show it to you. Hold on, I've got. I'll share my screen. Yeah, it's such a. It's a very famous image, so this is like the little Wikipedia about it, but you can see the image there. So that guy right there putting that flower into the pistol, that is George Harris.
Speaker 1:So he's already like made a mark before he did anything. To be honest of note, really on a personal level, which is crazy. So anyway, george, at the point that he met tomato when their paths crossed, he had changed his name to hibiscus, and so fabulous.
Speaker 2:Fabulous and, you know, very much in par with the plant named Thame, exactly.
Speaker 1:That's a good point. I didn't even think about that. So he was part of a commune called Cauliflower, spelled with a K, that was dedicated to distributing food and to creating free art and theater. Creating free art and theater. So this is like at the time there were a bunch of communes in san francisco that were all like kind of functioning actually as an ecosystem.
Speaker 2:So this was in like the 50s or early 60s. This was in the late 60s late 60s okay.
Speaker 1:So there's like there was basically like a commune where people would focus on fixing people's cars for free. There was a common where people focused on giving food for free. There was, you know, all these different like little ecosystems, so that because they were trying to get outside of the world of money actually and and they were like moderately, you could say, successful at that um, because they truly created like a little ecosystem of communes, and I think there's part of me that like fantasizes about such a thing where you could join a commune and it's not a cult, you know right so, but the two very, very rarely do not intertwine exactly so this is one of those instances where that did not really happen um
Speaker 2:but, so out of this, wait, wait, wait, that they weren't intertwined, or that they were, it was a cult as well. It was not a cult.
Speaker 1:It was not a cult, it was a community.
Speaker 2:The dream. That's what I'm saying. It was a dream. A commune community, yes.
Speaker 1:So out of this little adorable commune ecosystem, the Coquettes were born and that's c-o-c-k-e-t-t-e-s the cockettes, the cockettes, that's right, like the rockets. But the cockettes, um, the cockettes have been described as a psychedelic gender fuck troop probably say a psychedelic gender fuck troop is, I think, the way you'd say that and they have been said to influence drag and glam rock in major ways. So if you love david bowie and rocky horror picture show, just know that this group planted a lot of the seeds that sprouted all of that again the plants yes, again the plants.
Speaker 1:It's just a through line, it's a through line john waters was a fan and watering plants oh my god, someone's someone's cringing. Listening to this right now like shut up about the plants you've beaten this metaphor to death. It it's not even a metaphor, it's just an observance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a through line of an observance of words and names, and coincidence, it's true.
Speaker 1:So, john.
Speaker 2:Waters was a fan and lovingly said they were insane hippie drag queens. It was complete sexual anarchy, which is always a wonderful thing, Perfect.
Speaker 1:Was it? I mean pretty like the tone, at least the sassiness they often did shows that occurred ahead of offbeat movie screenings at the Palace Theater in San Francisco, because they were like these are our people anyway, so let's give them a pre-show yeah, and it would also make sense that that's why they influenced rocky horror, because, yes, that's like that's the whole culture of rocky horror like everybody's dancing in the crowd and it's like part of the.
Speaker 1:It's just like a show before a show, show within a show. So going on a show and then there's the nap, life is a show.
Speaker 2:So Going on a show, life is a show, everyone's on drugs, etc.
Speaker 1:And according to Waters, that's exactly what was happening, like they were wild shows with people tripping on acid and having sex in the crowd, like it was truly anarchy. God, yeah, so, and Tomato himself said. God, yeah, so.
Speaker 2:And Tomato himself said they were like guys who dressed in drag from the waist up and they were naked from the waist down, and girls who dressed in just. It was a glitter theater group guys and girls who would just like try to confuse the public. They not only dressed in drag, they dressed as furniture. It was like great I love it um dressed as furniture. Yes, I love that. I know. Just just go to.
Speaker 2:Just go to a pre-show and be like a sexy lamp yes, exactly like I thought that was a prop, it was a person and like I, I'm just like shining light on like two guys having sex in the crowd.
Speaker 1:I'm like you're already playing the part of the lamp.
Speaker 2:You're playing it so well I'm like just imagine like a sexy gold Pixar lamp illuminating gays.
Speaker 1:Illuminating the gays.
Speaker 2:Illuminating the gays.
Speaker 1:So they performed shows with names like Gone with the Shows.
Speaker 2:Which piece of furniture would you be?
Speaker 1:Oh, what piece of furniture would I be? I would be. Oh my God, Well, I'm just stuck still in vampire land. I would have to be like a chaise lounge at this moment, oh yes, oh okay.
Speaker 2:And then, first of all, we'd go as a group of friends of girlfriends and we'd all be a group, right a furniture and we'd we'd just be like we'd randomly, just like we'd walk in and then set the scene for like a living room and then be like, yes, one, two, three and it's like living, and we'd snap into living room mode I feel like this is a.
Speaker 1:This reminds me of those like youtube videos where people imitate animals as dancers. You know what I mean. There's like something, some something line here yeah, um, also, we could be so much dumber so much dumber and we would be the most annoying people on halloween if we were like, let's do a group costume as furniture and we won't be able to fit through any doors. It would be super annoying. Um, I hope they did something like that, oh me too, me too, that's what I envisioning.
Speaker 1:Yes, so they performed shows with names like gone with the showboat to Oklahoma. Which is incredible or something like that.
Speaker 2:Um and hot greeks just so you know what you're coming for yeah, a lot of, a lot of a lot of gays over here a lot of gay, a lot of a lot of musical.
Speaker 1:All gay, lots of gay and happening here. Um divine himself even joined the troop for a time divine himself and the divine and performed a song called a crab on your anus means you're loved while dressed, while dressed as a lobster, not even on the crab. I can't get through that.
Speaker 2:I can't get through this sentence.
Speaker 1:Like every, part of it is funny. I, and of course john waters, was a fan of this. Like, of course, like, first of all divine's involved, like all of this, oh my god yeah, so though I'm not sure if tomato and divine ever performed, they definitely knew each other To. Maeda said.
Speaker 2:I hitchhiked with Divine once on 8th Street. It was hilarious. He would not hitchhike, like put his finger out. He would jump in front of a car and pound like this, Pounding on a table on the hood. He did this. He pounded on the hood of this car and this old lady is in the front of the car and he's like Tamara, get in, get in, I get in. And the woman would be terrified and he was like we're going to the top of the hill.
Speaker 1:Just like, probably in full drag, like, just so like, and Divine was wonderful but terrifying, I love.
Speaker 2:But first of all I love, first of all, that it's like hitchhiking to the top of the hill like not not wanting to walk to the top of the hill, I'm assuming in full drag I think this is just to scare her like I don't feel like he's just like I could walk, but also I feel like scaring somebody right now yeah yeah, columnist lillian roxen said that the cockettes were 15 years ahead of their time and that every time you see too much glitter or a rhinestone out of place, you will know it's because of the cockettes so, as far as tomato is concerned, his principal work with the Cockettes had been as Hazel the Maid in their film production of Trisha's Wedding in 1971, which was a take on then President Nixon's daughter's wedding.
Speaker 1:It was an early piece of gender bending political satire where you know the character of Eartha K kitt, not the real eartha kitt spikes a bowl of to clarify spikes a bowl of punch with lsd and for the purpose? For the purposes of this episode. That's all you really need to know. Okay, from what I've understood, I will call out here political wedding lsd punch yes, and there's like it's, it's like there's other political characters throughout it.
Speaker 1:Right, because it's like a lot of political satire stuff um this film. So I'm gonna just I did not watch it. You kind of have to like search through some libraries of film archives and whatnot to find it, from what I understand. But because it's like basically considered a piece of like early queer um cinema in a way.
Speaker 2:Okay and cinema cool right and so, but it's um.
Speaker 1:I listened to an episode this is another source I guess I'll list for this show kind of um. They use similar sources as me anyway, but there's an episode of no dogs in space which is. I don't know if you've ever listened to that show, marissa, but it's the um. It's marcus parks and carolina hidalgo from the last podcast on the network yeah, and so they are doing um like, uh about bands and whatever.
Speaker 1:So they did, they did an episode that involved tomato and um talked about some of this stuff and said and basically carolina said that like she watched um trish's wedding and that it is pretty much unwatchable, but that it's like you know, it's an early piece of queer cinema and I think some people revere it just because it was.
Speaker 1:You know, it was like they're doing something different right kind of the first of its kind right, right, right, but probably not that easy to watch now, and there's a few things like that in here. Honestly, out of this Hazel the Maid performance in Trisha's Wedding, tameda decided to head out on his own and start his own gender bending theater group called Ze Whiz Kids, ze Whiz Kids, ze Whiz Kids, z-e yeah.
Speaker 2:Z-E space, w-h-i-z space, k-i-d-z, z-z-z. The Wiz Kids, the.
Speaker 1:Wiz Kids, but this time he decided to put his thumb in the air again and head to a new city, and that city was Seattle. A new city, and that city was Seattle. So much like the Cockettes. The Wiz kids wrote and performed a prolific amount of shows and many musicals with a rotating cast of characters with wild stage names like Gorilla Rose, satin Sheets, rio de Janeiro and Melba Toast.
Speaker 2:That sounds like so much fun.
Speaker 1:I it does, and so originally the whiz kids performed like buskers in seattle. They did shows on the street, at bus stops, in a grocery store and at a lesbian dive bar, and there was like a rumor with this lesbian dive bar. I couldn't verify this enough from the source to say it really, but it's like that. There's a rumor that at that lesbian dive bar you could like go up and purchase a Tommy gun, which is crazy. I was like what? Like that can't be real.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, they're like an old I don't know an old Tommy gun. You could, if you asked that, the right thing, you get one. I'm like that sounds insane, so, but all of this sounds insane, so who knows. Yeah, um, so they were not on the radar of any critics or viewers at the time. Writer larry reed looks back on them with reverence, saying what were the shows?
Speaker 2:like loud, campy, joyous, with the audience sometimes joining the kids on stage. We would call it performance art today. There was no template to it, so that's a pretty good explanation. Really. That's a. That's a really cool review.
Speaker 1:Slash explanation and then so just to show you, like, how big they did kind of get, even without being on the radar of critics and everything, they found their way to performing at the Eagles Auditorium in 1970 and from there gained popularity and a wider audience. And one of the biggest feathers in their cap was opening for Alice Cooper in 1971. Right Like that's pretty huge what.
Speaker 1:At Seattle's Paramount Theater in a 1950s themed show called Puttin' Out is Dreamsville, which featured a song called Rock Around the Cock. So I feel like the WizKids was really just like taking the legacy of the cockettes and being like San Francisco did it right. Let's move it to another city.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's make funny songs and and change lyrics to like it's like sexualize everything.
Speaker 1:And it's like being a gay evangelist, like let's take this church and bring it to another city.
Speaker 2:So love it. Yeah, missionary, this is the kind of mission I can get on board with.
Speaker 1:Right In 1973, tomato Duplenty got restless and moved again. This time he headed back to the city that birthed him, nyc, taking former coquette Fyette Fiat Houser with him. He performed.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he performed offbeat comedy at, of all places CBGBs, the punk club but he was performing offbeat comedy there.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I feel like. Yeah, he's like a punk comedian. That's very punk, yeah. So this often involved duplenty performing songs like I enjoy. Being a girl for comedic effect, you know that song yeah, like when I have a brand new hairdo with my eyelashes all in curls, like that's fine I float on the clouds, yeah, exactly why do I know all the song, the words of the song that I do?
Speaker 2:um, so she's a musical theater it's in my blood.
Speaker 1:Many places or many pieces written about tomato have said that he opened for then unknown bands like the Ramones and Blondie this way but according to him, that was not the case.
Speaker 2:Okay, he was like let me set the record straight.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so this is a little snippet of his final interview that he did with Jack Rabbit of NWR.
Speaker 2:I used to do standup comedy at CBGBs.
Speaker 1:You were like an opening act, like the unknown comic no, oddly enough.
Speaker 2:No, the bands were the opening act. This was when cbgb owner hilly crystal was turning it over from a bluegrass club. Cbgb originally started in 1973, the letter standing for funny enough country bluegrass and blues, then a comedy club and then he finally let like.
Speaker 1:The ramones, I think were the first band I remember playing there so it's like they're just like we think we're a comedy club at this particular moment in time and the bands are secondary to your right bullshit performance right now, which is so weird, so weird as that may seem.
Speaker 1:Tomato formed lasting friendships with blondie out of this experience, um, and some of the ramones. So, while in new york, he also did a gossip column called hollywood spit that would eventually, eventually end up on public access TV, and he also casually opened a vintage store with no actual name.
Speaker 2:He was like always doing, he was just doing doing, doing, doing, doing stuff all the time he was always doing stuff and creating and such a restless spirit like had to have his, you know always thinking about the next thing, whatever.
Speaker 1:So. But then it was time to boogie again, get out there, because once again Tomato was getting restless. So he went back to Seattle and started a band this time Something new, not a comedy troupe, not a gender bender the band band. He started a band called the Tupperwares, with ex whiz kids, melba toast and Rio de Janeiro. And they had they had some fun songs, like I'm going steady with Twiggy and Ava Braun. Who's like? That's like the reference to Hitler's girlfriend.
Speaker 2:Right, and, by the way, those are two separate songs. It's not I'm going steady with twiggy and ava braun one song. One song is I'm going steady with twiggy and another is ava braun.
Speaker 1:Yes, two different songs. It's two different. Thank you for that clarity. Oh, audio as a medium, we gotta clarify, we gotta clarify I can't see these quotes. Yeah, but this is a pretty abrupt switch from the theater and comedy route that he'd been taking so far. Jack Rabid asked about it in his interview. How is it then, if you were doing comedy shows, things of that sort, how did you end up deciding that you wanted to do music?
Speaker 2:As I said before, I've never made, I've never had to make the decision you just fell into it. Yeah, I fell into it. A really good friend of mine who did comedy in CBGB's Gorilla Rose. He's now gone. He lived by this expression let's do things. And that's how I live my life by being active. Do things, do plenty, do plenty. I love that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So he just was like action, not thought that was like his, I would say, ethos. So the band also included a very young Eldon Hoke, who later and I might be pronouncing this wrong, by the way who later became the notorious El Duce of the Mentors, which is a band, and he's also the dude that is rumored to have been hired by Courtney Love to kill Kurt Cobain. This is like a whole.
Speaker 1:Whoa yeah, like there's like a, there's a whole conspiracy theory around this guy and then he like also was on a jerry springer episode and then got hit by a train right afterwards it's see, that's what yeah total and died yeah, but tomato set had only nice things to say about that guy, by the way, so I think it's just. It's all just conspiracy theory, like you know, right.
Speaker 1:But anyway, the very first tupperwares show was actually the premiere of the john waters movie pink flamingos. Stop it, yeah. So really good start, as uh, as far as gigs go, like again, he did it. Like just I had just the way the um cockheads had done performance ahead of the screening Right. So on May 1st 1976, the Tupperwares joined the Mace and the Telepaths that's a band or the Mace, I'm not sure how you say it.
Speaker 2:M-E-Y-C-E.
Speaker 1:Yeah, mace, yeah, mace, maybe the Mace maybe yeah, that makes sense. And the Telepaths, which were other little bands in the area to perform for the tmt show, which just stood for tupperware's mace and telepaths, um, at seattle's odd fellows hall. And the reason I even bring this up is because this show is, like, talked about a lot. It's, uh, enshrined as a foundational moment in the Seattle music scene. It's regarded by many in the musical community within Seattle as the first time the city fully embraced the experimental and DIY movements within music that had previously been ignored. So basically, it was considered to be the beginning of punk rock in Seattle.
Speaker 2:In Seattle. I feel like is the beginning of punk rock in this In Seattle. I feel like is the beginning of punk rock in this nation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and well in grunge for sure yeah, yeah, yeah, punk and grunge, Punk and grunge. So it was just like that. Yeah, Once they could, once Seattle could get their hands on a little bit of grit. They were like we like it.
Speaker 2:We like it.
Speaker 1:The way it feels between our fingers. But Tomato didn't really consider it to be punk music of the tupperwares, he said the tupperwares was just a little joke band I was in.
Speaker 2:the tupperwares was just a little joke band I was in. They were like a bubblegum. No big deal.
Speaker 1:No big deal, just a little thing, just a little historic thing I did, but listening to the little bit of their set from that concert. That, but listening to the little bit of their set from that concert that there is to hear. I think he didn't give himself enough credit, so let's look into that Too humble.
Speaker 2:Too humble so he doesn't seem to have an ego.
Speaker 1:He really doesn't.
Speaker 2:I just feel like he's like too busy. He's like I just want to make art and you know, whatever people think of it, they think of it, but I'm just going to keep making art and I love that. I know it's kind of like what we're doing this is art, this is our punk thing, this is our punk thing, but we do want to know what you think of it, so like leave a comment like we won't care what you think of it, you know a la tomata yes, exactly, but what we would like to hear is curiosity, you know.
Speaker 1:The curiosity of it all.
Speaker 2:Exactly the curiosity of it all.
Speaker 1:So this is like just a live recording of what they did, just to give you a little idea of it. But he's saying it's not punk. It sounds pretty punk to me.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Here, okay, here, it is Fuck anything.
Speaker 2:Hear it, okay, yeah it sounds pretty me and it sounds fun to me. And you know what? The sound quality is not great, but it sounds like fun yeah, it sounds like fun.
Speaker 1:You can see how it was like lighting people up because, like the way that they compared this time and and I have this quote below actually that's perfect that they show this later in that video. This is from Art Chantry, who's a graphic designer. I don't know anything about him, but his quote is great about this. He said Tomato came back from New York and formed a punk band called the Tupperwares and they all wore leather jackets and had Brian Jones haircuts, you know, and they were all doing Iggy Pop covers. And for Seattle in the mid-70s people were freaked out. Everybody was still listening to Journey and Kansas local bands that had names like Cheyenne and Gabriel. I love that specificity local bands that had names like Cheyenne and Gabriel. Heart was huge and like the band. And here's this guy coming back from New York acting the part of a punk rock dude and everybody paid attention like they were ready for that, like this city didn't have that. Yet they were. Basically everybody was like music is just lame now and then all of a sudden, this comes through.
Speaker 1:So so cool yeah. So, although they were getting a lot of attention in Seattle, it was time to hit the road again, and this time it wasn't just restlessness. Even though the Tupperwares had made a big impression in Seattle, they weren't getting gigs easily because there simply weren't that many venues to play. This was like for the show I just talked about. They booked all of that, they did all of that themselves. They had to put the legwork up to even make that happen.
Speaker 1:Right Right to the PA and everything Wow so like so much work. Exactly, and this was the 70s and many live show venues had become quote discos that were all about one DJ and dancing. Because it was like cheaper, it was a trend, it just kind of made sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, businesses at the time to like death spiral a little bit because of that, and this is probably why everyone hates disco, you know or at least from that time period.
Speaker 1:So, uh, so melba toast, who had now changed his moniker to tommy gear, total total left total switcheroo there. Yeah, he's like I'm punk now fuck the drag. So melba toast, who had now changed his name to moniker to tommy gear, had the idea to bounce after reviewing a magazine that showed what punk in england looked like.
Speaker 1:They were kind of starting to imitate this but he and tomato looked at magazines of the sex pistols and their whole look, and tommy said they should dress the part of the punk scene fully, embrace it, start a fresh new band and head to los angeles to see if they could make it happen. Um, so, originally it was rio de janeiro who's you know, his real name was david golbrinson, so rio de janeiro rolls off the tongue much more.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, the newly dubbed, uh, tommy gear and tomato to plenty that headed down to make the band happen. So it was the three of them at first.
Speaker 2:Okay, so that's what they had been. They had stuck, stuck together for a while, yeah, like through various ventures and incarnations.
Speaker 1:I love it. It was like a marriage.
Speaker 2:They're like let's just, yeah, grow, let's grow and change when you find people that you can artistically grow together, because there's many different phases of their artistic expression here and they kind of all stuck together and did it together. That's really special and I love that.
Speaker 1:I think that it's just like I think before they realized they were punks. They were punks, they were just guys who were like I'm going to DIY my way into doing what the? Fuck, I want.
Speaker 2:Like Vampyra. She was punk before Exactly.
Speaker 1:That's why he saw her. He looked and he saw her. It's so cute. So that's what they did. They showed up in LA. They looked cool and mysterious, with that punk genocide, and specifically Tometa had spiked his hair and shaved off his sideburns entirely. That was his look, his iconic look. But upon arrival, the band members shuffled around Rio de Janeiro, left due to creative differences.
Speaker 2:Oh, I just talked about how wonderful it was.
Speaker 1:Well, they did. I mean, that's still traveling to multiple cities.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they wanted to branch out.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, and I don't know if, like Rio de Janeiro was. I actually don't know enough about this to know if Rio de Janeiro was the bass player that like in the interview to made a references that there was a bass player originally who was like we should make this just an instrumental band and he's like wait, I'm the singer, what are you trying to say? But like that might've been the creative difference.
Speaker 1:I don't know, that might have been it. That might have been it, but uh, after further shuffling, you know, eventually he was replaced by paul rossler, who was the brother of black flag bassist kira rossler. So already they're kind of pulling in some more punk elements. And then, after finding each other mutually alluring, at a party, drummer kK Barrett was asked to join the band.
Speaker 1:Kk was the only truly traditional punk instrument in the whole band, as the other members were playing an ARP Odyssey synthesizer that was Tommy Gear, and a Fender Rhodes electric piano Paul Rossler. So there were no guitars in this band, no guitar At all.
Speaker 2:So Tamada said we didn't have any guitars and we met a guy at a party who was shoving people. This was in 76. And by that time it was the Eagles music. People were so happy and loving and to see somebody out at a party with that kind of behavior we thought we should start a band with this guy.
Speaker 1:And that was KK.
Speaker 2:Yeah, kk. He was this rowdy from Oklahoma who learned how to play drums from listening to Aretha Franklin's Chain of Fools. This was his all-time favorite song. I don't know how many times I've heard him drum to that. Anyway, we started playing and by that time we just didn't think we needed a guitar. It wasn't a political thing, it wasn't a thing that was inspired. Oddly enough, it just evolved. Oddly enough, I feel like that's its whole thing. It just evolved.
Speaker 1:Whatever project, just whatever project I'm doing just evolved, I just evolved, everything just evolved, and yeah, yeah, I feel like when people talk about being in a flow state like this, is what that is.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean?
Speaker 1:You're just like I'm not judging, I'm just letting myself flow from one thing to another to let it speak, and I'm not going to get in my own way. So they named the new iteration of the band the Screamers, largely due to Tomato DiPlenty's singing style, which was actually just screaming it truly was.
Speaker 2:Maybe that's why maybe Rio was like maybe we should just do. I think that's what he was saying. He was like gently trying to just do. I think that's what he was saying because he was like he's like gently trying to be like dude.
Speaker 1:But I mean and I don't even mean to say like that tomato was offended by it. I think he kind of thought like he, he was doing everything for art's sake. I don't think like he had a personal ego about his own no, no, I'm not saying that at all yeah, it's no. No, I don't think you are even. It's just like to. To clarify, because I think he like thought it was. Yeah, I think he thought it was funny. But he even describes himself. He's like I'm not like in this interview.
Speaker 1:He's like I'm not a musician, I'm just the jerk at the front, Like that's how the way anyone thinks about this but no, that's so fun yeah, and this the screamers were actually like a hit nearly immediately after setting settling in los angeles, and this could have been for a couple different reasons. Um, maybe it was due to their legendary, magical and very punk rock living situation. They lived in a large house known as the Wilton Hilton that still stands today. Um, wait, I'm going to look it up. Yeah, look it up. The Wilton Hilton, the Wilton Hilton.
Speaker 1:So this yeah, this house has all kinds of legend and lore around it. I think it's like a bed, a, b and B now or something like that, or maybe I can't tell something like that. But Tomato said that William Randolph Hearst had bought it for his lover, marion Davies. But that is an unsubstantiated claim. There's like no evidence that that's true. That's just maybe a tall tale he told people. What is true is that the 60s girl group, gto girl together outrageously, which included groupie musician turned writer pamela debar, who we have discussed before in our christopher jones episodes, lived there. So she's the one who, like, grilled him. Like really remember interview um.
Speaker 1:So she was a band member of this band.
Speaker 1:Um many claim that the house is extremely haunted and one of GTO's members, miss Christine, who died of a barbiturate overdose, is said to still hang around the house in the afterlife. From what I looked up, she didn't even die in the house, so I don't know if that's true. But I mean, like people say, ghosts work in different ways. I don't know, um, but when the screamers lived there, they leaned into the spooky and covered many of the rooms with black plastic, which is both creepy and easier to clean. Um, I don't know if they thought about that at all, but that may have come in handy after all the rowdy parties that were held there while they lived there. Um, at this point in made, a specifically had been around and had dipped his toe into many different weirdo and almost famous pools of people, so their parties were filled with names.
Speaker 2:Blondie was there.
Speaker 1:Devo hung around. Punk bands like the weirdos and the germs came by because they were kind of coming up at the same time as that it was very raucous. Um. So they became big in LA very quickly, and some say they were able to start.
Speaker 2:They had like a really cool party house.
Speaker 1:They had a really cool party house. And like no ego and like everyone was, it was welcome, it seems, and they looked cool, people would like see them and just be like who are those guys, like they were like, cause I think like it's important to stress that the punks you guys can hear the yeah if there's any sirens, it's because of new york.
Speaker 2:New york, okay, new york city.
Speaker 1:They became big in la very quickly. Some say they were able to start buzz because their friends designed posters for non-existent shows and put them up all over town, which is kind of a brilliant marketing strategy to be honest at the time, so funny, and, in fact, gary Panter was an artist who created a logo based on tomato screaming with his spiky hair.
Speaker 1:That is still one of the most recognizable pieces of art of Los Angeles punk rock history. So, um, it's yeah, really, really cool image. Yeah, let me show you. Okay, so, this is just like a few examples of it, but that's what it looked like. Oh, yeah, have you seen this before? Yes, yes, it's like still popular today. Yeah, oh, that's really cool, that's supposed to be tomato de plenty like right there Okay cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can see it. I can see it.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, yes but once the band had started performing, they developed a very loyal following. They were truly ahead of their time and synthesizer based punk was not going to be seen in a big way again until the 90s really whoa way ahead of their time yeah, there were also bands like the Dead Kennedys who directly copied to made a theatrical performance style and, funny enough, the Screamers never actually recorded in a studio ever.
Speaker 1:So any audio of them is either a homemade demo which they did do in the Wilton Hilton, a live performance, or audio ripped from the videos they made Because they were so ahead of their time that they prioritized making videos and using them in their performances in the late seventies, when most people were hardly familiar with the idea of a VHS tape. There was no yeah it was like definitely way ahead there was no.
Speaker 1:MTB yet, but they had their finger on the pulse yet, but they had their finger on the pulse and this is the sound they achieved. So this video that I'm going to show is actually like oh, hold on a minute. Okay, I'm going to share with you this. I'm going to skip around in it a little bit, but this is from the Target Studios promo videos that they made. So Target the no, it was called it was again ahead of target the store oh, I was like, wait what all right so this is like uh, I'm just gonna skip to this.
Speaker 1:Like, start this little helicopter thing. Jesse, by the way, was very impressed with the way that this video was done for the time.
Speaker 2:And Jesse edits music videos all day. Yeah, and then his head is like slowly coming into focus from the back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a helicopter and now and then I'm just going gonna skip ahead here a little bit. The spiky hair.
Speaker 2:The screamers is right. Oh, the synthesizer sounds really cool actually, yeah it's really really cool.
Speaker 1:That's so cool and it's like just watching him perform. He's got like he's super theatrical, like you can tell he's a theater guy.
Speaker 1:And then like so there there's. I'm trying to get like one to one of the full body shots over here in this video, because this is just like a smattering of the um promo videos that they did. But that's from um 122 hours of fear, which is one of their songs, and let me try to. I want to. There's like one in particular bit I want to get to here. So, like you can kind of see I'm just skipping through this a little bit you can see some of his fashion, like his punk choices. Here too, he's got like pinstriped shirts on and like bow ties and suspenders.
Speaker 2:Has he met Vampyra at this time?
Speaker 1:No, this is like in his prime, so this is like late 70 prime. So this is like this is before uh, late 70s, very early 80s, like the, the screamers were only around for like four years um you got four wonderful years, yeah, your best years in college oh yeah, so this song is awesome. This is called vertigo he looks so cool. He's like very Mick Jagger in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2:I can see at the camera. He's just like, actually like going all the way down to the ground. Right now he's dancing and acting everything out. Gosh this is amazing. It's like just jumping around like full blast like tap dancing, stomping irish dancing, acting out every single word and and then this is the part I want to show you, because this came out of like a live.
Speaker 1:This is from the first song you show you because this came out of like a live. This is from the first song you're listening to. This came out of a live performance where he was doing something dramatic and somebody like in the pause said you suck. And then he like came up with this moment, basically and like part of the song. So he's like fallen to the ground, he's on a knee, everything stopped. He's just like collapsed by the microphone stand.
Speaker 2:You better shut up and listen. You better shut up and listen.
Speaker 1:That moment came totally organically from somebody being like you suck, and he's like you better shut up and listen. And then it just looks so good. Well, on that note yes, we're going to come back to the later years and then how. We'll dive into a little bit, because you know, I'm just going to say this now as a little teaser for next week because this is real.
Speaker 1:We're kind of like leaving on this episode at the height of the screamers. But, um, there's some, uh, there's a project that I didn't know about, that he did with vampire, that, oh my god, and so we'll dig into that.
Speaker 2:So get a little bit of a revisit. That's so fun. Oh, I can't wait.
Speaker 1:Yeah. But, um but he's this is really fun, right? He's a.
Speaker 2:This is so fun.
Speaker 1:He's like super, super rad I'm honestly impressed. He's like a. He's like a Phoenix that keeps rising from not even ashes.
Speaker 2:He just keeps evolving.
Speaker 1:I love this guy. He's like a flower that's growing out of a flower. Over and over again, again, another plant. Yes, he's just a little tomato flower.
Speaker 2:A little tomato, tomato, tomato, tomato.
Speaker 1:I know how many times did he hear that tired old joke. By the way, tomato, tomato, tomato. If you liked what you heard or if you have any feedback for us at all the good, the bad, the ugly, the dead, the alive please leave us a review on apple podcasts, um, and and let us know what you think we really want to hear from you. Also, follow the show, please. Um, you know, definitely subscribe whatever, wherever you get your podcasts, but but write us your review, tell us what you're thinking.
Speaker 2:Dead and Kind of Famous is written, researched and produced by Courtney Blomquist. It is co -hosted by Marissa Rivera. We tag team on socials. Jesse Russell and Courtney Blomquist do our editing.
Speaker 1:Until next time. You might not be famous, but you got a story to tell and you're not dead yet.
Speaker 2:Okay, bye, bye.
